Efficiency creep and shadow innovation: enacting ambidextrous IT Governance in the public sector

Figures & data

Figure 1. Three waves of IT Governance transformation in the public sector.

Figure 2. Shift in conceptualisation of the differentiation between efficiency and innovation.

Table 1. Overview of data collection from Case 1.

Focus	Data source	Description	Amount
Problem	Workshops	Workshops (1 hour each) with key representatives from the STA and the research team focused on discussing and defining the research agenda.	4
	Correspondence	Emails between the research team and representatives from the STA pertaining to the focus of the study.	150
Strategic	IT Governance Steering documents	Formal documents detailing the current configuration of IT Governance at the STA.	21
	Consultancy reports	Reports created by external parties to the STA with recommendations for how to improve IT Governance.	9
Tactical	Financial reports	Accumulated yearly (2016) figures with total spend, budgets etc. for each project.	4
	Project charters	Formal documents focused on describing and defining development and maintenance projects’ scope, stakeholders, team, and objectives.	103
Operative	Survey	Activity-based costing inspired survey directed towards project managers.	22 of 54

Table 2. Overview of data collection from Case 2.

Data source	Description	Amount
Meetings	Introductory meetings	2
Workshops	Workshops	1
IT Governance Steering documents	Formal documents detailing the current configuration of IT Governance at the SIA.	7
Consulting reports	Consulting reports directed towards IT Governance oversight and re-design.	9
Financial reports	Accumulated yearly (2017) figures with total spend, budgets etc. for each project.	3
Project charters	Formal documents focused on describing and defining development and maintenance projects’ scope, stakeholders, team, and objectives.	96
Interviews	1–2 hours each with individuals (see Table 3) involved in project portfolio management, general IT Governance, and project management.	13

Table 3. List of respondents for interviews.

Respondents	Title	Function
1	chief architect	IT
2	innovation hub manager	IT
3	project leader	health insurance
4	project leader	Disability
5	development strategist/portfolio manager	Family
6	development strategist/portfolio manager	Migration
7	line manager	business support
8	line manager	line support
9	department head	CEO support
10	business developer	development staff
11	business developer	development staff
12	business developer	development staff
13	Controller	development staff

Table 4. Number of interviews with qualitative evidence of the two core constructs and six second- order themes (Legend: EC = Efficiency creep, ST = Short-term focus, RA = Risk aversion, LF = Loan funding, SI = Shadow innovation, AU = Autonomy, SL = Slack, OP = Opportunity).

	EC	EC:ST	EC:RA	EC:LF	SI	SI:AU	SI: SL	SI:OP
#Interviews identified with … (n = 13)	13	8	13	7	10	10	12	11

Figure 3. Distribution of ambidextrous balance in three layers.

Table 5. Overview of purpose and goals of selected projects.

	Purpose	Goals
Project A	An improved, common, and automated workflow for [omitted].	Decreased manual labour correct and unified handling of [omitted] Improved monitoring Improved information quality Unified maintenance of process and system for [omitted]
Project B	To secure the future availability of IT for the tax authority and [omitted].	Efficient operations, maintenance and development 20% More cost efficient than compared to now Future-proof technical platform that will support the current and future needs of the organisation Secured availability through migration
Project C	Develop and launch ICT and method support … for [omitted] firms.	More efficient in the control of taxi firms More efficient in the selection of taxi firms for control Compliance

Figure 4. The exploitation mechanism of efficiency creep.

Figure 5. The exploration mechanism of shadow innovation.

Figure 6. The ambidextrous IT Governance mechanism.

Figure 7. The ambidextrous mechanism and its implications.